


Watch the Tenterhooks

by velocity_raptorr



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Gore, Brothers, But Loki is also a psychopathic murder child with serious mental issues, F/M, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Bro, M/M, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Murder, Organ Theft, Psychological Horror, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Sibling Incest, Tags May Change, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 14:19:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14215026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velocity_raptorr/pseuds/velocity_raptorr
Summary: After quitting the Avengers to protect a brother teetering on the edge of his sanity, Thor Odinson lives a semi-normal life on a less-than-normal planet, waiting for orders that will never arrive.





	Watch the Tenterhooks

The keys rattle in the door as Thor works them into the rusted lock. The farmhouse is functional at best, and Thor can only guess how old it is. Loki likes it because it's alone and far, _far_ away from the Hulks and Tony Starks of the world. 

Thor doesn't like it in the slightest. It's old and the Rodgers-day electricity blows at any given moment and everything metal is copper with rust _and_ it creaks so loud when it's windy that if one didn't know better, one might think it was a banshee’s scream. 

Today is a windy day. 

Thor winces as the house gives another nails-on-a-chalkboard screech in protest, accentuated by the oak tree that cants so far over the roof its branches scrape against the crumbling shingles. He has a sneaking suspicion that Loki likes windy days--the obscenely loud noises help conceal whatever mischief he decides to get up to.

Thor sighs. Loki’s mischief had become more and more murderous the longer they stayed in the farmhouse. He knew his brother had been self-harming for a while, but Loki had always carefully concealed it, bottling all his pain and all his jealousy until it burst and bubbled through him in unrelenting waves of self-hate. When they first moved into the farmhouse, Thor had believed that Loki’s hatred would dissipate from no longer having any expectations to live up to. Loki could not be jealous of what broken, sad shell remained of the mighty Thor Odinson. 

Oh, how wrong was he.

At first, it had started with simple cuts. Pinkish-red marks that crosshatched across his brother’s forearms, scabbing and scarring only to be torn open again by the next day’s assault. They spread over his skin like a disease, inching down to his stomach, then his thighs, then back up to his biceps. All the while his baby brother, this universe-deserving creature, looked on, smiling brightly, as if blind to their angry red depravity. Thor knew better than to bring it up with him. Thor knew better than to ask. The Asking, the Prodding, the Pleading; it only made Loki cut deeper into his perfectly pale skin. Thor could do nothing but watch as his brother descended farther and farther into the bottomless grave he was digging himself. 

And then Thor came down for breakfast one morning to find Loki humming quietly to himself as he finished cutting a slice of flesh out of his own arm, a dangerous amount of navy blood from three other chunks of arm seeping into the table and staining it a deeper brown. 

It had stormed for days after their fight, the house squealing in protest as Thor’s fear shook Earth’s measly heavens. Loki didn't utter a word for months, although Thor would sometimes catch him pacing ‘round his rooms, mumbling to himself, eyes glazed over like newly cut glass. The thin walls did nothing to block out Loki’s depraved laughing late at night. Thor barely slept those nights. He barely sleeps at all, these days. He wishes Loki would talk to him, curl against him under the covers and cry as Thor strokes his unscarred parts with a calloused hand. The time they do spend in bed together is much less enlightening, and Loki never stays long enough for questions. Thor wants nothing more than to reassure his wilting brother that everything would be alright, that Thor would always protect him. Even from himself, if it comes to it. Thor swears not to let Loki fall that far.

Thor finally forces the rusted keys to turn the equally rusted lock and throws open the door with all his usually vigor--and freezes, paralyzed. Loki looks up at him from the floor, surrounded by jars of bloodied organs that Thor can only assume were ripped from the graying body that Loki is elbow-deep in. 

The warped creature that has replaced Thor’s beloved brother looks up and him and grins.

“You're home early.”

**Author's Note:**

> im going through a few things rn, can't you tell?


End file.
